Good University Guide 2023

University of Gloucestershire

National rank

112
th
72.2
%
Firsts / 2:1s
81.1
%
Completion rate

Key stats

103
rd
Teaching quality
106
th
Student experience
111
th=
Research quality
104
th=
Graduate prospects
University of Gloucestershire

Contact details

Address

The Park Campus, The Park, Cheltenham , GL50 2RH,

View on map

Telephone

Website

A former Debenhams store in the centre of Gloucester is being transformed into the University of Gloucestershire’s City Campus, opening in autumn 2023, a short walk from Gloucester Cathedral and the train station. 

Staff and students from the school of health and social care will be among the first to move to the site, where a new arts, health and wellbeing centre will be open to the public as well as students. The library and café will also be shared. The development is the centrepiece of the King’s Square regeneration, under Gloucester city’s successful £20 million bid to the government’s Levelling Up Fund. 

The new campus will be the university’s second in Gloucester, and it has three in Cheltenham, seven miles away. The main Park campus, a mile from the centre of Cheltenham, houses the business, education and professional studies faculty. Art and design facilities are closer to the town centre at Francis Close Hall. Nearby Hardwick has photography and fine art studios as well as its own gallery. Recent upgrades at the Cheltenham sites have added a biomedical laboratory as well as an architecture studio and community teaching space. The purpose-built Oxstalls campus in the centre of Gloucester caters for business, healthcare, sport and exercise sciences.

On the edge of the Cotswolds’ Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, Gloucestershire became a university in 2001, having begun as a teacher-training college. Its primary and secondary teacher-training courses are rated “outstanding” by Ofsted. It was rated silver in the Teaching Excellence Framework for its integrated approach to enhancing employability through volunteering and placements. The "Your Future Plan" team operates at all of the university’s campuses, offering careers and employability services such as a mentoring programme, placement opportunities and keynote speakers.

Having fared better than many other universities in terms of student satisfaction during the pandemic, Gloucestershire has tumbled downhill in our analysis of the results of the latest National Student Survey, published in summer 2022. It topples 50 places to 103rd for student satisfaction with teaching quality and falls 44 places to 106th for satisfaction with the wider undergraduate experience. 

Gloucestershire’s curriculum gains nine new degrees in September 2023, including audio engineering, nutrition, sport coaching and performance analysis, zoology, and construction project management. Face-to-face teaching is back as the main delivery system, after the university canvassed student opinion. Recordings of lectures and presentations are also available on a virtual learning platform. 

The university’s degree apprenticeship provision was rated “good” by Ofsted in March 2022. Its portfolio of options spans 21 programmes, with about 1,000 learners enrolled. Among them are programmes to train cybersecurity technical professionals, healthcare science practitioners (ophthalmology), registered nurses, and digital marketers. 

The university offers diplomas in environmentalism, sustainability research and development projects that bring together researchers from around the world, undertaking work for agencies such as Unesco. Its Countryside and Community Research Institute on the Oxtalls campus is the largest rural research centre in the UK and produced some of Gloucestershire’s best results in the latest Research Excellence Framework (REF 2021). Art and design also performed well. Overall, 47 per cent of the university’s submission was rated as world-leading or internationally excellent, the top two categories. Gloucestershire doubled the number of subject areas assessed, compared with the previous REF in 2014. The university slid three places to joint 111th in our research rankings in a year of improving performance across the sector.

About half of each year’s entrants qualify for some form of financial aid, from the academic merit scholarship of £400 a year awarded to new students who achieve 128 Ucas tariff points or better to the care leavers scholarship of up to £6,625 per year for three years.

The university sits in 31st place in our social inclusion rankings for England and Wales, with an intake overwhelmingly from non-selective state schools (92.8 per cent). The intake includes 47.2 per cent of students who are the first in their family to attend university.

More than 20 sports scholarships are awarded each year, not only to student athletes but also to talented student coaches and officials. A strong sporting tradition is supported by extensive facilities at Oxstalls Sports Park and in Cheltenham. Students have the run of an indoor and outdoor tennis centre, a cold water therapy pool, playing fields, international-standard 3G pitches for rugby and football, fitness suites, a sports hall and cricket pavilion. The university’s sporting alumni include Lizzie Yarnold, the double Olympic skeleton gold medallist, and Ruaridh McConnochie, the former England rugby international.

Gloucester makes an accommodation guarantee to all first-years, including those who arrive via Clearing (about 15 per cent of the intake in 2021). Spa town Cheltenham offers nightlife within a honey-toned Cotswold setting and the Gloucestershire countryside hosts more than 45 music, arts and science and festivals each year, such as the Wychwood, 2000 Trees and the Cheltenham Literature Festival.

show more

Performance

Category Score Rank
Ranking - 112 (96=)
Teaching quality 72.4 103rd
Student experience 68.6 106th
Research quality 21 111th=
Ucas entry points 118 89th=
Graduate prospects 67.4 104th=
Firsts and 2:1s 72.2 106th=
Completion rate 81.1 98th
Student-staff ratio 17.2 81st=

Vital statistics

Undergraduates

Full-time

6,157

Part-time

277

Postgraduates

Full-time

799

Part-time

958

Applications/places 8,630/2,305
Applications/places ratio 3.7:1
Overall offer rate 80.7%

Accommodation

Places in accommodation 1,685
Accommodation costs £119 - £213
Accommodation contact https://www.glos.ac.uk/accommodation/

Finance

UK/EU fees £9,250
Fees (placement year) £1,300
Fees (overseas year) £1,300
Fees (international) £14,700
Finance website https://www.glos.ac.uk/finance/
Graduate salaries £21,450

Sport

Sport points/rank 505, 60th
Sport website https://www.glos.ac.uk/sport/

Social inclusion and student mix

Social Inclusion Ranking 31
State schools (non-grammar) admissions 92.8%
Grammar school admissions 3.5%
Independent school admissions 3.7%
Ethnic minority students (all) 8.1%
Black achievement gap -16.7%
White working class males 7.6%
First generation students 47.2%
Low participation areas 13.1%
Working class dropout gap -0.1%
Mature 35.2%
EU students 1.7%
Other overseas students 3.6%

Student satisfaction with teaching quality

Geography and environmental science 93.6%
History 89.4%
Communication and media studies 85.6%
English 85.5%
Music 82.5%
Business, management and marketing 80%
Education 78.2%
Biological sciences 77.5%
Hospitality, leisure, recreation and tourism 74.7%
Sports science 74.1%
Psychology 73.9%
Drama, dance and cinematics 73.2%
Criminology 70%
Information systems and management 69.5%
Art and design 69.1%
Physiotherapy 68%
Sociology 67.7%
Creative writing 66.1%
Subjects allied to medicine 65.7%
Social work 65.5%
Town and country planning and landscape 64.8%
Nursing 63.6%
Accounting and finance 61.2%
Computer science 59.2%